“PUTTING ON PAINT AND FRILLS.” —47 
most birds have degenerated, to some extent. Their 
feathers also, as we have seen, have degenerated, but 
rarely, if ever, at the expense of ornament, and per- 
haps nearly always to enhance it. Beautiful downs, 
plumes, and remarkable structural effects, as in pea- 
cocks, lyre birds and others, are the results of degen- 
eration. 
Birds do not appear to give up their ornaments 
for safety even. They are there by beauty as the Mo- 
hammedan is by his beard or the Chinaman by his 
pigtail: better die than lose caste. Doubtless many 
species have been swamped, “ like other people,” by 
“putting on too many frills.” It is easy to see how 
such a bird as our peacock, cumbered as he is, would 
easily fall a victim to a newly introduced adept 
enemy, as a fox, for instance. 
Arrangement for protection (by natural selection 
or otherwise), such as mimicry of haunt, may slightly 
rearrange the plume, or cut the patch of color into 
an imitating pattern, or push it a little around out of 
sight, but the law is that it must not eliminate it. 
The two interests may be combined, however. <A 
certain night hawk has two beautiful wing plumes 
which it sheds after the nesting season. It roosts 
on the ground, and they project up and resemble the 
grass plumes among which it squats, and they are thus 
protective. The patterns of the beautiful chestnut 
parts of the woodcock and some partridges mimic 
well the dead leaves; and the black breast spot on the 
wrybill (which, with a beak bent to the right, feeds 
around stones in the water always with the same side 
